Dicotyledon

Araliaceae -- The Ginseng Family

Cheirodendron

General Information
	Distribution	A Polynesian genus with 5 species in the Hawaiian Islands and 1 endemic species in the Marquesas Islands.
	Habit	Andromonoecious shrubs or trees, glabrous with a strong carrotlike odor when cut.
	Leaves	Leaves opposite, palmately compound; leaflets 3‒5(‒7), margin entire or toothed, midrib, margin, petiolule, and petiole usually tinged purple or yellow, petiolule often laterally compressed; stipules absent.
	Flowers	Inflorescences a terminal, erect, oppositely branched panicle of umbellules; bracts minute, subconnate, persistent, forming an involucre below the umbellules and a pseudocalyx below each flower. Flowers perfect and functionally staminate; pedicel jointed below the ovary; calyx of 5 short, basally connate teeth; petals 5(6), valvate, caducous, triangular to ovate or oblong, apex inflexed; stamens 5, pale yellow, spreading; ovary inferior, 2‒5 carpellate, styles 2‒5, distinct, connate more than ½ their length, or occasionally completely connate, when connate forming a short conical stylopodium, the distinct arms ascending to spreading, each with a stigma on the adaxial surface.
	Fruit	Fruit a drupe, green, ripening dark purple, exocarp fleshy, globose, or laterally compressed and orbicular or oblate to ovoid or obovoid, 3‒7.5 mm long.
	Seeds	Seeds a cartilaginous pyrene, laterally compressed, as many as the styles.
	Notes	The name is derived from the Greek cheiros, hand, and dendron, tree, in reference to the 5 palmately arranged leaflets often seen in some species of the genus.
	Contributor	Nancy Khan